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Thursday, July 7, 2011

As I have been reading all these summer vacation blog posts, I asked myself what are the 10 favorite places I've seen? So, here's a list of 10 places I've really loved, I'm sure there are some really great ones I've missed, but here's a quick list off the top of my head, I wish I had pictures, but these are mainly in my head and I think of them often so I don't forget.

1) Philmont, New Mexico-the rain, the lightening storms, the meadows, the flowers, the meteor shower on Aug 142) Zion Narrows, Utah- the pool somewhere in the middle of the hike with enormous red flowers vining up the canyon wall and crystal clear water.3) Fairview, Wyoming-the Hale Farm4) The view of the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island from my childhood home in Bountiful, Utah- the sunset there every night was extraordinary, truly one of the most amazing sights of my life and I saw it hundreds of times.5) Firehole River, Yellowstone, Wyoming In the winter when its frozen and smokey looking, wow!6) San Francisco/Bay Area, CA-Kirby Cove, sourdough bread, Muir Woods7) Green River Lakes, Wyoming- Slide Lake, the lake as well as the waterfall on the way to the lake where a quick glance took over a half an hour, it was so beautiful8) Oregon Portland-the flowers at the temple, Astoria-foggy, charming little town, good clam chowder (Becky, I'm curious if you agree with my impressions...), Seaside-sunny, cheerful, hanging flower baskets EVERYWHERE.9) Gettysburg, PA and Washington D.C.-the feeling I got at Gettysburg was overwhelming, a once in a lifetime experience, it gave me a much more profound love and appreciation for many things. 10) Cache Valley, Utah- the Logan temple-celestial room and how the exterior is lit at night, driving the valley on Sunday afternoons, and Wellesville Canyon when the leaves change color in the fallwow I was just going to go to ten, but I really loved Evergreen, Seattle, and Lucerne and...

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Little D is pretty obsessed with trucks right now, so we took the family to the Cars movie for his birthday and made him thisHaulin' Cupcake birthday dessert. "Giggle" and "Zoom" testing out the plasma car

The arts council asked me to teach another LEGO class. This time for 12-18 year olds instead of 5-7 and 8-11. I honestly did my favorite 10 projects last year and think its great for any age, but they requested different more advanced stuff, hoping that something unusual would entice the older kids to sign up.

So instead of basic bricks, I had somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 various LEGO pieces of every imaginable type. The last day I brought a scale and each student got to take home 2 pounds (about 600 pieces) of LEGO, whatever they wanted from the class set. I called it Pick-a-Brick day, that was a big hit.

The projects were much more complex and visually less impressive than the bright basic Lego brick sculptures of last year, but they loved the challenge of building with so many special LEGO elements. One student said the last day, "this is a pricey class but definitely worth it" All the other students agreed. Yay, just what a teacher likes to hear.

Technic Thing-a-ma-jigs

LEGO vignettesMiniland size 3 1/2 inch figurines:Ninja

Planets Day: We built Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, the international space station, and Pluto which is not a planet (therefore didn't take many LEGO bricks, heh, heh).